Pro/rel will not happen as long as the MLS is a single entity league where "owners" pay )and receive) franchise fees to get into the club. For that you need a league of independent clubs. Until that happens you can squawk all you want about the Utopia pro/rel will bring but you might as well pizzzzz in the wind for all the good it will do.
Stop showing up to MLS matches and you'll have Pro/Rel in a heartbeat. MLS needs to be taken down if we are going to move forward. Single-entity is a massive hindrance to the US National Team.
I played little league with a kid who wasn’t very good. His dad took him to camps, clinics, special instructors whether he wanted to or not. By his freshman year in high school, he was on varsity and one of the best players on a very good team. He quit by his senior year. It amazes me that parents still think they are going to force a kid to be a superstar.
Some think only eurosnobs want pro/rel because Europe does it. Not you, others though. I've of the opinion we ultimately need if because we're not Europe. If we were the size of France of Germany, I'd feel much better about 22-30 MLS teams covering the landscape. Alas, we're not. Our landmass rivals the entire continent of Europe in size. Our population is about 320M. 22-30 teams will never come close to maximizing that. Then one might argue, well what about the NBA/NFL, they're doing fine. Well they sure are, yet they don't scout develop every community. The HS/NCAA model does that for them, scouts every community, heavy competition for players to sign, dozens upon dozens upon dozens of schools shouldering that responsibility, then at 19-22, off to the pros the players go. Entirely different than having a kid in your academy from age 11 on. MLS though is moving away from the NCAA model. So, absent of pro/rel, who shoulders the responsibility and work the HS/NCAA model provides the other sports? A little college next to me, St. Mary's, scouts from NY to Australia for basketball talent. Multiply that by well over 100 colleges. That's the pyramid underneath the NBA. What do we have? We're trying to reinvent the wheel, going away from the NCAA model while focusing on the academy model, while severely limiting the number of academies and investment in them. Basically we're working against ourselves. Academy systems have never flourished without pro/rel and American franchise systems have never flourished without the HS/NCAA model pumping out talent. Whether MLS is profitable for the 22 owners is an entirely different discussion. It is. It's also improving with the injection of foreign talent. Doesn't mean the system is the best for the landscape though, or the American player.
Not a chance. There are way more soccer fans in this country than there were in the 80s. Another league could and would pop up in a heartbeat. The fans have the power to demand positive change to the structure of US Soccer, not enough of them have the guts though.
Expansion needed to stop at 20 teams. After that it's pointless, there is not enough talent to support that many teams ,otherwise you just end up having to look elsewhere for talent which is what's happened.
Pro/rel won't change basic traits of soccer that go a long way in making it unpopular or niche at best in the U.S.
Even Arena said it, we lose too many one on one duels. We need to find stronger and more physical players who are technically up to the task. We have been falling behind in the athletic game for the last several cycles. To the point where even the Central America sides push us around.
Sure. I think the major red flag for me is how many rules we have which lend to an anti-development environment. I don't expect pro/rel now. Won't happen. But when there's so much crazy restriction across our landscape simply to protect the profit of 22 owners, it's completely backwards. That's the real issue. Even without pro/rel we could produce a system much more favorable to the development of the American player. Bottom line, there's little competition or incentive in player development and much of that is based on rules which can be changed, pro/rel or not. But the most powerful people in our landscape aren't soccer guys. They don't get it. They're businessmen. They're limiting avenues/options for American players for the purpose of decreasing competition and protecting profit. And this is now where we are.
Yep Bingo!, and the typical US Soccer fan is too dumb to know they are being taken to the cleaners by these guys at the expense of the National Team. Enjoy your MLS. I don't want to hear you whine when the Nats are the laughing stock of the world every 4 years. You guys enabled it.
And the thing that often gets lost with this is that world class coaches tend to be better talent evaluators as well.
This seems to assume that lower division soccer teams in the US have massive financial resources that they're currently hoarding (or spending on something else) - and that, with pro-rel, they'd be suddenly incentivized to put ithat money into youth development. Is there any objective basis for this whatsoever? Where is all this lower-division soccer money going now, if it exists?
Well, just to be clear, there is pay to play and there is pay more to play better. I think the latter is more an issue than the former.
The US is too vast and populous for pro/rel to be the dividing factor for many, many years. After you establish one or more soccer teams at any level in a meaningfully stable pyramid in all the major markets (100 or so), you could begin to consider the kind of saturation in a region that would support the competition for eyeballs and talent that pro/rel actually thrives on. Travel is the bane of soccer leagues in the US. It doesn't foster regional rivalries, lowers the quality of player performances and costs beaucoup bux. Div 3 teams can't afford to waste 3/4 of their budget flying cross-country to every other game. Consider the possibility that all the teams within 200 miles of a major media market end up in the USL. Where do all those rabid soccer fans go to watch an MLS quality game, when they aren't slumming it with their crush? To avoid that and address the travel issue, we need a level of saturation that requires regional divisions, preferably up and down the pyramid. In that context, pro/rel starts to make some sense. But it's not a prerequisite for good youth development, IMO. I'm not even sure it wouldn't be a hindrance in practice.
I would be quite surprised if any MLS franchise didn't have resources to at least scout their own cities. Would it really be that difficult for San Jose to send a couple guys to drive around the Bay Area and check out some of the areas where the kids play soccer the most? Is it too much to ask the Dynamo to send a couple of scouts to South Houston to check out what's going on and potentially find a diamond in the rough? Here's the thing. Those kids that have to be dragged out of bed every weekend because they need exercise are not going to become world class. The kids that get up on their own, grab the soccer ball and beg dad/uncle/cousin to come play with them are the ones that need to be focused on by MLS/DA. They are the potential difference makers for the future.
I have only read the first page, so some of what I say below might be repetitive... 1 - Fire Gulati. He has had his turn at the top, and ever since 2002, there has been a slow lowering of achievement and seemingly a divine right to qualify for the WC. And that comes from the top. Some of his "yes" men will need to go, as well, though not all at once. There needs to be a transition. 2 - The person who replaces Gulati needs to have a soccer background, either as player or coach. If y'all remember, Gulati got into US Soccer administration with no soccer background. He is an economist, and made USSF a lot of money. But he does not know how to develop talent. 3 - I not sitting forward on the Fire Arena bus as he did walk into a bad situation, but he also should have risen to the occasion. Not sure who his replacement should be. 4 - Refocus on the youth. And I mean all youth, not just those that can afford to pay to play. And this needs to be done in conjunction with MLS, not as a standalone. Basketball and football are not the only sports poor (and brown) kids are interested in playing. 5 - Improve data analysis and metrics. Top clubs and managers around the world, and in various sports, are spending more and more on data analysis to prepare their teams, and MNT should be able to do this, too. 6 - (This will get a lot of people up in arms). Show a clear separation between the current Presidential administration (and similar administrations). If y'all don't think there was an emphasis by Honduras, Panama, and T & T to work that much harder, you are kidding yourselves. That the US is out is a part of the celebration by Honduras and Panama. Further, as noted in point 4, there are an awful lot of brown people who do like soccer. But if the USSF supports the same policies as the current Presidential administration, then that will be a turn off to them. The biggest way to do that is removed the rule requiring players to stand during the national anthem. FIFA already has that on their books, and USSF does not need to have it there. (This is not about protest and expression, this is about how brown people view USSF and the US, both internally and externally.) 7 - Have MLS develop a promotion/relegation system. I'm sure it was mentioned, but that will put some players in a position of playing for more pressure than just whether to get to the playoffs or not. 8 - Tell MLS to stop expanding.
I think pro/rel is a much easier concept for a culture to accept when there is an inherent love of the sport nationwide. MLS as it stands has trouble gaining prestige in our culture even without getting into the actual play. LA Galaxy is probably one team mainstream sports fans could name, and their stadium being used by an NFL team is the butt of jokes. So what happens when a team with financial resources and some semblance of history goes down and is replaced by Punk Rock City FC, whose rowdy 8,000 fans help them survive in MLS for a year or two before they're replaced by Cosmos Reborn. It might work. Or it might make soccer look like even more of a circus act to a greater culture already prone to ignoring the sport.
Anyway, one problem with most of these suggestions is that the current performance of the senior national team doesn't reflect the current state of youth talent production - it's probably more reflective of the state of youth development about a decade ago. As Brian Sciaretta has written, the difficulties throughout this cycle can to some extent be tied to a lack of top players in the 23-27 age range - the result of a dry spell of talent that showed up long ago, and that may be over for the time being. To the extent that a dearth of talent over multiple years had systematic causes (as opposed to being random), it's likely that those causes haven't gone away. At the same time, the idea that we need to burn everything down because the youth crop was meager in 2007-2011 seems dubious, given clearly better results recently.
It won't be any different from when Eibar got promoted in Spain and sold stock shares on the Internet to raise enough capital to be able to compete. Their stadium seats only 8,000 and cannot be expanded as it is hemmed in by apartment buildings. they stayed up for three maybe four years now and play attractive football.
Different country, different culture. Impossible to say for sure a small "indie" type of team in the U.S. could maintain enough momentum and mindshare to survive the long haul, especially if, like in the Spain example, the upstart has little realistic shot of competing for a league title. In the greater U.S. sports culture, "playing attractively" while finishing mid-standings at best is not something to celebrate.
I disagree. I think we need more teams. More teams=more academies and more kids getting proper coaching and chances to succeed. Fewer kids slip through the cracks and fewer pick other sports. Also, put a floor on the number of players who have to be American. Localize the games like they do in baseball and hockey. Play teams in your division more and travel less. Part of the problem with mls is the travel. Don’t believe me? Next mls game between one team from the east and one from the west, bet on the home team. I’ve made an absolute killing this year just by betting the home teams. It’s especially predictable for west coast teams traveling east. The visiting team is always lethargic and plays horribly. No one benefits from Vancouver traveling to New York the day before the game just so they can be jet lagged and worn out before the game even starts. Then, when they get spanked 3-0, everyone wonders what happened. It’s the same reason why Germany built Camp Bahia for the 2014 World Cup. They knew what kind of a toll the travel takes on you.
There is only one free junior hockey league in the US.Any of Tier 2 or 3 leagues are a crapshoot with regard to getting into college. Travel team cost at the AAA youth levels is As Bad as soccer.
Why do we assume that it takes oodles of money to develop savvy soccer players in the first place? Do more with less, builds character and resilience. Let's get back to the values of hard-work, hard noses and the school of hard knocks. Too many manicured fields, too many soccer academies, too many travel teams, too many incompetent "coaches", too many trophies for second place, too many coddling parents...and all the while more money needed to paper over the real problems.